[1] He studied at the École normale supérieure from 1971 to 1975 and completed his Ph.D. in 1978 at the University of Paris, with a thesis written under the direction of Kenneth Walter McAloon.

[1] From 2009 to 2013, he was an adjunct scientific director of the Institut national des sciences mathématiques et de leurs interactions [fr] (INSMI) at the CNRS.

[4] In his later career, he was a major contributor to the theory of braid groups, including creating a fast algorithm for comparing braids,[5] and was one of the main contributors to the development of Garside methods.

[1] In 2002, he was elected a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (renewed in 2007).

[1] In 2014, he received the EMS Monograph Award for his book Foundations of Garside Theory.